Abstract

We framed crime victims as lucky, through downward counterfactual comparisons, and tested this “luck framing” influence on observers’ judgments of the victims. Victims framed as lucky and aware (Experiment 1) or unaware (Experiment 3) of their luck were rated as in need of less social support than victims who were not framed as lucky. This luck framing effect generalized to victim compensation: lucky aware victims were rated as deserving of less compensation compared to unlucky victims (Experiment 2). In contrast, luck framing of victims had little influence on observers’ judgments of the severity of the sentence a perpetrator should receive (Experiment 4). Taken together, for crime victims it can be bad to be thought of as lucky.

摘要

通过向下的反事实比较，我们将犯罪受害者定为幸运者，并测试了这种“运气成帧”对观察者对受害者判断的影响。被定为幸运和意识到（实验1）或未意识到（实验3）的被害人与没有被定为幸运的受害人相比，需要较少的社会支持。这种运气的框架效应普遍适用于受害者补偿：与不幸的受害者相比，意识到运气的受害者被认为应获得较少的补偿（实验2）。相比之下，受害者的好运构架对观察者对肇事者应受的刑罚轻重的判断影响不大（实验4）。综上所述，对于犯罪受害者而言，被认为是幸运的可能是不好的。